26 October 2010

BLACK FUNERAL

There was an interview with BLACK FUNERAL's leader Baron von Abaddon in Pit magazine in 1995/6 that received countless yucks in our tour van. He said something about wanting his music to inspire someone to commit suicide and talked all kinds of trash about how evil he was and how much he loved Satan. Understandably, we wanted to know more about this mystical Satanic evil doing forest dweller, so when we passed through his hometown on tour we spent most of the evening asking everyone who would listen (and those who didn't care) where we could find The Baron. Not surprisingly, the denizens of Eviltown, USA (also known as Indianapolis) were not too forthcoming with information on The Baron's whereabouts, but near the end of the show a shy longhaired chap approached our merch table and said in a hushed voice: "I hear you're looking for The Baron." We whooped with excitement, but the fellow nervously quieted us down and started hesitantly sharing only after we swore to never reveal the source of such top secret information. Apparently, if memory serves, the Baron von Abaddon was (in 1996) a thirty-something fat white dude who lived in a trailer park with his mom, had shrines to both Hitler and Satan in his room, and worked the night shift at Pizza Hut (his mom drove him to work so he wouldn't have to walk through the scary black neighborhood). Perhaps the kid was talking out his ass, but he was legitimately spooked while telling us about The Baron, so we took his words as truth (also, this new image of Indiana's premier Satanic Black Metal purveyor was about to provide us with hours of entertainment in the van). I didn't hear BLACK FUNERAL until later in 1996, when I picked up this '94 demo cassette in Nagoya, Japan (go figure) for 200¥, and imagine my shock when I loved it. Lo-fi bleak and ethereal howling black metal that sounds like it just emerged from the frosty depths of the walk-in freezer at Pizza Hut.

The Baron you speak of is Mike Ford. Not sure about the story the kid told you, but it is close to some of the stories I have heard. I have never met Mike, despite having played in a well known Indiana black metal band, but I have heard some real doozies about him mostly via my friend Dave Britts who was briefly in Mike's pre-Black Funeral band Sorath.

And, in reference to Anonymous' Picked Clean comment: all of those kids were like 2 or 3 years old when Black Funeral started crypt kicking, though it is humorous to think they would have a lineage to Indianapolis basement black metal that they have never heard of.

TAPES....FUCKING TAPES!!!

TERMINAL ESCAPE is a home for cassettes. Terminal Escape is here to share music that was released on, or copied onto, cassette. Whenever possible, I have linked the posts to currently active labels and/or bands, and you are encouraged to buy physical copies of the tapes you enjoy, as this blog is meant to support those bands and labels, not circumvent them. Likewise, if you have a legitimate claim to any of the music I've shared and would like it removed, I'm happy to do so.

DEAD LINKS are common. I will likely not repair broken links, because I am more focused on daily uploads. Various overzealous file hosting sites are making it increasingly difficult to share even non-copyright protected music, and as a result the majority of the download links in older Terminal Escape posts are probably not active.